AXA Future Risks Report 2022 - #3 Cyber
For the fifth year in a row, cyber threats rank among the top three hazards in the AXA Future Risks Report 2022. Since 2018, cyber security threats have been among the top three expert-ranked risks, trailing only climate change and geopolitical instability in this year's report.
While there have been several incidents of cyber extortion and ransomware attacks, there has yet to be a large-scale cyber-attack that has crippled critical infrastructure such as health care, energy storage, or payment systems. Geopolitical tensions and the digitalisation of our daily lives increase cyber dangers, which continue to score high in this year's survey.
Among the cyber risks highlighted are:
Disruption of essential services and infrastructure
Identity theft (personal and corporate)
Ransomware and cyber extortion
Here's my summary of some of the key points relating to Cyber and Technology raised in the report;
Concerns about cybersecurity remain high as geopolitical tensions rise.
Every year of the survey, cybersecurity threats have been ranked in the top three by experts. Only pandemic danger in 2020, when the poll coincided with the advent of Covid, and geopolitical risk this year, when it coincided with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, pushed them out of second place. With an increasing portion of society reliant on technology, cybersecurity risks, like health risks, appear to be a persistent component of the future risk picture. When asked what drove them to choose this danger, experts were slightly more likely this year than last year to identify the shutdown of important infrastructure and essential services (51% versus 47% in 2021). Conflicts between nations are a significant risk factor for attacks on a country's critical services, like as health systems, which are currently under great strain in many countries as they deal with the aftermath of Covid. As with many risks, experts listed public-private partnership as the top priority for government officials in addressing this risk. Experts are far less likely to claim that the public sector (25%) is well equipped for cyber dangers than the private sector (42%) - in fact, they believe the private sector is better prepared than any other sector.
Risks due to technology disruptors.
When experts were asked to rank each danger as "slowly emerging," "rapidly emerging," or "already there," the top two threats in the "rapidly emerging" category were both technological: technology-related economic hazards (50%) and disruptive technologies (48%).
Among technology-related economic threats, 38% of respondents last year and 41% this year expressed concern about cryptocurrencies and digital tokens. Disruptive technologies remain near the bottom of the overall rankings, however they have risen slightly this year compared to last among both professionals (up from 21st to 20th) and the general public (24th to 23rd). Following a year of hype around the metaverse, improved human-machine interfaces and virtual and augmented reality remained the top worries among those who chose this risk. (side note; I believe this risk is overstated as there are too few use cases for 'the metaverse' for it's mass adoption).
Another technology-related concern that was largely regarded as "rapidly emerging" (46%), was artificial intelligence (AI) and big data. Experts and members of the general public who chose this risk were more likely this year than last year to cite advanced AI as an existential threat to humanity as their main reason for prioritising this risk – in contrast, regulatory and liability concerns were more frequently mentioned in last year's survey.
AXA Future Risks Report 2022 - Cyber security risk ratings over time
Government reliance on Tech Platforms.
Events in 2022 strengthened the impression that power is migrating away from nation states and towards a small group of global technology companies. The Ukrainian conflict demonstrated that private firms may wield more geopolitical power than many countries: Microsoft spotted Russian cyber operations, and Starlink provided connectivity to Ukrainian cities and military. Meanwhile, when Western countries looked for sanctions to destabilise Russia's government, tech companies played a role.
The platforms' owners are still largely left to their own devices: setting their own rules on moderation and how to regulate speech. Despite considerable progress in the US, antitrust and privacy legislation remain a long way off - albeit authorities in the US fought against expanding tech power even without Congress. Other countries, such as the EU and Australia, have gone even further in their opposition to tech platforms. China launched a crackdown, purportedly to rein in monopolies but, in reality, to subordinate technological power to political power. Also with the rise of AI platforms like ChatGPT, this becomes even more difficult to manage because interpreting what's in the model is far more sophisticated than regulating platforms like Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
According to the report, in 2023, technology companies will only become more powerful, and they will gradually carve out positions commensurate with their power. These opinions may or may not coincide with those of governments, as was the case in Ukraine.
